1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a system and method for accessibility data maintenance and privilege authorization. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for managing an accessibility database which includes user accessibility data and providing the accessibility data to authorized requestors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information technology has provided, and continues to provide, a seemingly unlimited amount of information to users. Using the Internet, a user is able to retrieve content corresponding to a particular subject from virtually anywhere around the world. However, this seemingly unlimited amount of information is not in a presentation form that is useful to many users. For example, “spoken” content or content in brail is useful to a blind user but written content is not useful.
A user with accessibility needs may build a functional system that converts a content's original presentation form into a presentation form useful to the user. Using the example described above, the blind user is able to build a functional system that converts written content into spoken content. However, problems of high costs, incompatibility, and the complexity of building such a system exclude many users from building a system. In addition, multiple content formats, markup languages, device capabilities, and network constraints also limits a user's ability to use a personal computer to convert a content's original presentation form into a presentation form useful to the user.
The worldwide migration of the Internet to deliver applications to end users and the spread of wireless communications are decreasing dependence on PC based applications. This migration creates an opportunity to make content available to a user in a useful presentation form by providing a central architectural point from which to transform (i.e. transcode) a content's presentation form. This central architecture may be in the form of a portal server where data is aggregated and possibly transcoded to produce content. It may also be in the form of a “transcoding gateway” such as a transcoding proxy server. The capacity to transform a content's presentation form makes information more usable to a broad range of users, including users with special needs. By using a portal server or intermediary server at the central architectural point, this server modifies the content's presentation form independent of a target operating system and browser. This reduces the installation costs and management costs of client-based accessibility solutions.
Industry and the U.S. government also recognize that content is not currently available to many users. Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act requires the U.S. government to purchase accessible information technology. As a result of Section 508, businesses that market to the U.S. government are modifying their information technology products and enhancing their web content in order for it to be more accessible to users. To make web content more readily accessible, accessibility transcoding services are emerging. A transcoding server, or “web intermediary”, intercepts content requested by a user and modifies its original presentation form to a presentation form useful to the user. The content's original presentation form remains unmodified on the content's server.
Challenges arise, however, with the onset of providing accessibility services, such as content transcoding, over a computer network. Users are often provided with an accessibility identifier, such as a handicap parking placard, which authorizes them to use a particular accessibility service, such as parking in a handicap parking space. A challenge found with providing accessibility privileges over a computer network is identifying which users have accessibility privileges corresponding to their particular accessibility service request.
Additionally, a challenge arises in traditional accessibility service verification. For example, a user with a heart condition may be vacationing in a foreign city and misplaced his handicap parking placard. In this example, it is not obvious that the user is handicapped and the user may have to contact his primary doctor in order to receive another handicap parking placard which may take weeks to receive.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method for maintaining an accessibility database which provides user accessibility data, such as accessibility privileges, that is accessible by accessibility service providers over a computer network.